Bringing home new baby is usually a joyful occasion. The addition of new family member, however, can be stressful on a family as the presence of a new family member changes the family dynamics. Also, with a new baby in the home, parents or caretakers are often seriously sleep deprived due to an infant's irregular feeding and sleeping schedules. A long period of sleep deprivation can have a significant effect on a person's memory. Tragically, every year infants die or are seriously injured to due a driver forgetting that an infant is in the back seat of a car, and leaving the vehicle for a long period of time, such as while they are working. If the weather is either very hot or very cold, the infant can perish prior to anyone becoming aware of the dangerous situation. According to one report, from the years 1996 to 2000 in the United States, more than 120 children died from heatstroke in a vehicle (although not all of these children were infants left behind in carseats; some were children that climbed into parked cars but then couldn't get out on their own).
A system for detecting whether a child car seat harness is locked is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,581,234 to Emery et al., entitled INFANT VEHICLE SEAT ALARM SYSTEM, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
A system for detecting whether a child has been left behind in a school bus is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,323 to Rogers, entitled SCHOOL BUS ALARM SYSTEM, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
A system for preventing children from becoming inadvertently locked within a vehicle is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,793,291 to Thornton, entitled CHILD ALERT SYSTEM FOR AUTOMOBILES, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The system uses a motion detector to detect the presence of a child or pet within a locked vehicle. While this system provides some advantages, particularly in the case of older children that may inadvertently lock themselves in a vehicle while playing, it fails to protect children who have been left asleep in their child seats and are not capable of sufficient activity to set off a motion detector. Such infants may continue sleeping and may become dehydrated and comatose without ever waking, and therefore, they may not be detected by a motion detector.
A system for preventing children from being left behind in an infant car seat is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,949,340 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,104,293 to Rossi, each entitled WARNING SYSTEM FOR DETECTING PRESENCE OF A CHILD IN AN INFANT CAR SEAT, and each of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. This system generates a warning when an infant is present and the vehicle ignition system has been turned from “on” to “off.” Detecting the state of an automotive ignition system, however, may be difficult to implement. Such ignition detection may require complicated electronic components, which may be different for different automobile models. As a result, such a system may be difficult to bundle with an infant car seat, which is often, but not always, purchased separately from the vehicle. Therefore, such a system may not gain the widespread consumer acceptance that is desired to avoid the potential tragedy that may result from leaving a child behind in an infant car seat. The present inventors have recognized, therefore, that there is an unmet need for an improved system for avoiding such tragedy.